AP 0993: Should I Publish Podcast Segments Individually?

By Pat Flynn on November 9, 2017

AskPat 993 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey what’s up everybody, Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 993 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I’m here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

We have a great question coming in today from Jason, but before we get to that, I do want to thank today’s sponsor, which is DesignCrowd; it’s a website that helps businesses crowdsource custom graphics from over a half million designers worldwide. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have, you can get the perfect custom design every time, or you get your money back—logos, websites, business cards, whatever you need. If you want to check out DesignCrowd.com, go to DesignCrowd.com/askpat; you get $100 off your next design when you enter the promo code “AskPat,” and there’s a free guide there you can download too. So check it out.

Thanks so much, and here’s today’s question from Jason.

Jason: Hey Pat, Jason here, I want to thank you so much for this opportunity, and it would be an honor for this question to be featured on your show. Now, my question is regarding a new podcast that my friend and I have launched. We went ahead and launched it on SoundCloud to try to get some opinions of those who we can contact and get some thoughts from. But the biggest question we have is, we have several things that we’d like to do, several segments, and the concern is a lot of podcast listeners, they only have 20-30 minutes, maybe for a commute, to listen to a podcast. I didn’t know if it was wise to do the segments separately and release them independently, or to just go ahead and do one long podcast with all the segments combined? I figured it would be good because they could listen to the segments they might enjoy more, rather than having to search through for the time limit that they have to listen to the podcasts. I really appreciate it, and I really hope you’re able to help. Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Hey Jason, thank you so much for the question. This is a great question because I know a lot of people struggle with, okay, how much do I include, all in one blog post or podcast episode or video, or how much do I segment out? If I segment out is that good because it’s more content, or is it bad because it’s kind of broken up into different pieces?

My thought is this. If a segment can potentially stand on its own, and it’s worth somebody subscribing to, and it’s worth somebody downloading and listening to that segment only, and nothing is missing if you are only listening to only just that segment only, if there is no value lost as a result of that, then I feel like it’s okay if you wanted to break it out into its own, either podcast episode or a podcast itself. Now the thing is, you need to make it regular, a segment, or something like that would have to be regular so people who do want just that segment only, if you do happen to break it out, they would know when it’s coming, and it’s going to be consistent and so on and so forth.

On the other hand, if a segment, just listening to it on its own, falls flat or is seeming like it’s missing something, then obviously it would be better suited within a much bigger episode, and the segment would just be a part of the show that people know is coming, but doesn’t necessarily have a lot of value 100 percent on its own. There’s a lot of podcasts out there that include a resource of the week, or news of the day, or something like that. That is something that would better be suited within a bigger show. I like those too, because it also breaks up that longer piece of content.

Now I completely understand where you’re coming from related to, “well, people only have so much time.” I think that also goes along with “do you know your audience well enough?” Is that true, or are you just assuming that? It might be something worth testing, for one. Then of course, testing is really the answer here. Try it out—you might want to take a segment that you do in a bigger episode, put it into a month’s worth of weekly episodes on its own, on a separate day of the week, just to see how that goes. If people feel like “oh, this seems like it’s missing something,” or it’s just kind of weird on its own, you’ll never really know the answer until you try it. Or, you can have a larger episode with multiple segments if that seems to make sense for you, and what it is those segments are, again, I cannot give you the direct answer because I don’t know what these segments are. There’s been shows that have done it either way, and have been very successful. Again, number one, test it, try it out, see what happens and be purposeful with that test. Be open and honest with your audience as well, if you have any sort of community, let them know what you’re thinking, have them be the guide for you too.

Jason, thank you so much for the question, I appreciate it. I just want to thank you so much, and I’m sending an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for those of you listening, if you have a question that you’d like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. If you know the answer to the riddles that I’ve been giving, not really riddles, just clues—you’ll see the riddle or the question on AskPat.com/solve. If you understand what I’m talking about, and you have the answer, based on the clues that I’ve been dropping since Episode 900, you’re going to be entered into a drawing where you could possibly win $1,000. I’m giving away $1,000 a day to celebrate Episode 1000 coming out next week. So $1,000 a day, and you just need to be entered once, although you can get multiple entries and you’ll see on that page how to do that. So AskPat.com/solve.

Thanks so much, I appreciate you, and here’s a quote to finish off the day by Helen Keller, and that is, “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.” Thank you so much, thank you for being a friend, and we’ll walk through this together. Cheers guys, bye.

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Show Notes

Jason has a question about podcasting: Should he publish segments as separate episodes or as one long episode?

Starting at Episode 900 and leading up to (and including) Episode 1000, I’ve been leaving clues to a puzzle. Next week I’m giving away $1,000 to a random person who solves it, every day! You can also get multiple entries for sharing the podcast. To enter into the drawing go to AskPat.com/solve.

Today’s sponsor is DesignCrowd: A website that helps businesses crowdsource designs from over 500,000 designers worldwide. AskPat listeners can receive a free download and $100 off their next design by visiting DesignCrowd.com/askpat and entering the promo code “AskPat”.